From the prior art it is known how to fragment a variety of materials by means of pulsed high voltage discharges or to weaken them in such a way that they can be fragmented easier in a subsequent mechanical fragmenting process.
Different process types for the fragmenting and/or weakening of pourable material by means of high voltage discharges are known today.
In case of small material quantities, the fragmenting and/or the weakening of the material is done in batch operation in a closed process container, inside which high voltage punctures through the material are generated. These methods are unsuitable for large material quantities.
For large material quantities, the fragmentation and/or weakening of the material is done in a continuous process by passing a material stream composed of the material to fragment past one or more high voltage electrodes, by means of which high voltage punctures through the material are generated.
Thereby, in a first alternative, the material is guided into a process space with sieve openings, from where it can only leave when it is fragmented to a target size defined by the sieve openings. The speed with which the material is guided through the process space, and consequently the intensity with which the material is charged with high voltage punctures, depends in this alternative on how fast the material can be fragmented entirely to the target grain size or grain sizes which are smaller than the target grain size, respectively. This results in the disadvantage that the process can only be influenced within narrow margins, which can lead to problems like excessive fragmentation of the material, undesired high fine grain percentage and/or bad energy efficiency of the process.
In a second alternative, the material is passed below one or more high voltage electrodes by means of a transport belt and high voltage punctures are generated through the material. This alternative avoids the above mentioned disadvantages of the first alternative, how it has itself the disadvantage that potentially not sufficiently processed material emerging from this process has to be separated and to be fed to the process again, for which purpose expensive and space-consuming additional installations are required.